By Adam Laskaris

If you take a look at Rachel Homan’s biography, you’ll notice three Scotties Tournament of Hearts appearances missing from the past decade.

But it wasn’t failing to qualify, illness, injury, or her three mid-career pregnancies preventing the five-time Scotties champion skip from competing at the Canadian curling championship: it was the fact she keeps heading back to the Winter Olympics.

In 2018 and this upcoming year, Homan’s rink qualified via the Canadian Olympic Trials for the four-person event, while she was selected as a representative in mixed doubles in 2022 alongside John Morris after the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled that year’s domestic trials.

For the last two quadrennials, it’s been a conflict for the women’s and mixed doubles Canadian representatives — but not their male counterparts. Since 2022, men’s Canadian Olympic teams have been able to compete in the Brier, although with an admitted tight timeline following their own events, with just six days between their possible last and first games. In 2022, Team Gushue won both an Olympic bronze medal and a fourth Brier title in the span of three weeks.

"Obviously disappointed that the dates overlapped again for our team and that we couldn't compete," Homan said in a pre-Olympics media availability on Monday. "We lost the maple leaf [as Team Canada] at the Scotties and then again next year. So that's obviously disappointing, but that wasn't our goal, that wasn't our intention. We knew that [the Olympic training and the Scotties] was going to be overlapped again for the women. So that's just the cards we had."

Particularly with three Grand Slam victories this season, and a victory at the Canadian Olympic Trials, Homan’s rink would’ve been the odds-on favourite to pick up a third straight Scotties title. With Homan absent in 2018, it was Jennifer Jones’ rink coming out on top at the Scotties, while in both 2022 and 2026 Kerri Einarson picked up the victories. There are no certainties in curling, of course, but it’s hard not to wonder how many titles the three-time world champion Homan may have picked up along the way with her team had she not missed out on three more cracks at it.

(In 2022, Homan’s teammates still went to the Scotties, though they went 4-4 with Emma Miskew as the team’s skip.)

Keen observers may have noted that Homan’s first game at Milano Cortina 2026 is on Feb. 12, about a week-and-a-half after the Scotties ends. In theory, competing in both events would be possible, but not ideal, Homan admitted, particularly with the team departing Tuesday for a pre-Olympic training camp alongside Brad Jacobs’ squad in Brunico, Italy.

“I think logistically, we could have done both... But is it in Canada's best interest for us to play for a month straight with international travel in the middle of that? Absolutely not,” Homan added. ”Our goal from day one was to get this team to the Olympics, representing Canada, and trying to get to that podium. And so every decision we've made is in alignment with that.”

Homan added that she was watching the Tournament of Hearts the whole week, and reached out to Einarson after the win. “We're going to have a great representative [at the World Championship in March]. There's tons of great talent in Canada. And [I] congratulated Kerri last night, and obviously a tough loss [in the final] for Kaitlyn [Lawes]. They had a really strong week. Great to see all those new young teams out there at the Scotties,” Homan said.

Homan’s team will begin their round-robin play on Feb. 12 at the Olympics against Denmark, while Einarson’s rink will take on Sweden about a month later on March 14 to start their World Women's Curling Championship event.

But while the two-time defending world champions will only be left wondering if they could’ve added a threepeat to the mix, they’ll still be rooting on their domestic competitors. “Hopefully we can both put the maple leaf on these next two months between both our teams, and show the world what Canada is made of,” Homan added.